Postage metering systems comprising a scale for determining the weight of an item to be mailed, a postage meter for printing indicia corresponding to particular postage values, and processing means for receiving weight information from the scale, computing the appropriate postage value for the weighed item, possibly using other postal information relating to the weighed item input by an operator, and means for setting the postage meter accordingly, are well known in the art. Such systems are typified by the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,308,579, Multiprocessor Parcel Postage Metering System Having Serial Data Bus, to Dlugos, issued Dec. 29, 1981. A detailed description of the computation of postage values in such a system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,325, System and Method for Computing Domestic and International Postage, to Dlugos et al., issued Aug. 25, 1981. Such systems may be incorporated in automatic mixed mail handling systems, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,890,492, Postage Value Determining and Control Circuit, to Manduley et al., issued June 17, 1975. In such systems pieces of mixed mail move serially along a feed path, first through a weighing station, then through a postage meter. As each piece of mail is weighed, the proper postage is determined and the postage meter set appropriately.
All of the above-mentioned patents are hereby incorporated by reference.
Of course, in systems such as those described above, considerable time could be saved in processing batches of uniform mail by presetting the postage meter and not weighing each piece of mail and determining the postage separately for each piece. Such a mode of use, however, introduces several possible problems. An operator may mis-set the postage meter allowing an entire batch of mail to be sent out with too much or too little postage, or in fact the batch of mail may not in fact be uniform, or, in systems where the items are fed through the system automatically, the system may feed two or more items through together, allowing some items to be sent out without postage at all.
A system which attempts to deal in part with some of the above-described problems is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,724,570, to Chenut, which discloses a preset weigher and a preset postage printer and an alarm means to prevent printing if a letter weighs more than a preset weight. This system, however, reintroduces some of the problems which the systems disclosed in incorporated references overcome. Thus, the operator of the system disclosed in the Chenut reference must not only properly set the meter for the items to be mailed but he must also properly determine the maximum weight which may be mailed for that postage; giving the operator two chances to make the kind of mistakes which postage metering systems were developed to avoid.
Thus, it is an object of the subject invention to provide a postage metering system capable of handling batches of uniform mail at a relatively high speed while minimizing the possibility that items will be mailed with either too much or too little postage.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such a system wherein the opportunities for operator error are minimized.
It is still a further object of the subject invention to provide a system, wherein a uniform batch of items to be mailed may automatically be serially fed through a postage meter, wherein the system has the capability to detect "doubles", i.e., two or more items inadvertently passing through the system together.